Abstract

Tamarind (Tamarindus indica L.) is a fruit species native to Equatorial Africa, India and Southeast Asia. Its seeds experience slow germination, thus, study on the influence of environmental factors, such as water and salt stresses, on seed germination, is required to assess the tolerance of these seeds to storage, and to maintain the vigor and the viability in the period between harvesting and sowing. The objective of this study was to evaluate the performance of tamarind seeds subjected to salt and water stresses and to storage. Three experiments were carried out in a completely randomized design with four replications of 25 seeds, totaling 100 seeds per treatment. For stress conditions, treatments consisted of moistening of the substrate with different concentrations of PEG 6000 (experiment 1) and NaCl (experiment 2) - 0 (control); -0.3; -0.6; -1.2. For the storage trial (experiment 3), seeds remained stored for 0 (control), 12, 24, 36 and 48 months. In the germination test, the percentage of germination, the speed of germination index, the mean speed and the mean germination time were assessed. All variables were influenced by the water and salt stress, and the seeds of tamarind sensitive to potential used in this work. As in the test with water and saline potential storage trials showed that the physiological seed quality was impaired when they were subjected to long storage period.

Key words: Tamarindus indica L, salinity, polyethyleneglycol, stress, storage.